scholarly journals WaterCoG: Evidence on How the Use of Tools, Knowledge, and Process Design Can Improve Water Co-Governance

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1206
Author(s):  
Ilke Borowski-Maaser ◽  
Morten Graversgaard ◽  
Natalie Foster ◽  
Madeleine Prutzer ◽  
Allard Hans Roest ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Process Design ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Stakeholder Involvement ◽  
Qualitative Evaluation ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Governance Processes

The European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD) encourages water managers to implement active stakeholder involvement to achieve sustainable water management. However, the WFD does not describe in detail how member states should operationalize participation. The need for local experience and local understanding of collaborative governance (co-governance) processes remains. The WaterCoG project evaluated 11 local pilot schemes. Building on the participatory, qualitative evaluation of pilot schemes from Sweden, United Kingdom, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Germany, the authors take a closer look at how co-governance can improve water governance, how water managers can make best use of tools and knowledge, and how they can improve process designs. The results reflect how social learning and successful co-governance are linked. Social learning as a shared understanding of complex ecosystem and water-management issues can be supported with active stakeholder involvement and citizen science. As such, in co-governance processes, stakeholders need technical access to data and knowledge and a shared process memory. This enables them to develop a shared understanding and facilitates bringing together competing interests and finding new solutions. Participatory tools became part of successful processes by building trust and knowledge based on commitment. However, proficient process design and facilitation make these tools more effective.

Social learning in an environmental justice context: a case study of integrated regional water management

Water Policy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (S2) ◽  
pp. 97-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina L. Balazs ◽  
Mark Lubell
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Stakeholder Participation ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Disadvantaged Community ◽  
Project Study ◽  
Regional Water

California recently implemented a statewide effort to learn how best to outreach to and involve ‘disadvantaged communities’ in integrated regional water management (IRWM) planning. Using the case of the Kings Basin Water Authority's Disadvantaged Community Pilot Project Study, we argue that social learning is a key mechanism through which the procedural and distributive justice goals of environmental justice are integrated into water resources planning. Using interviews, focus groups and survey results, we find that social learning has short- and medium-term effects of increasing access to information, broadening stakeholder participation and developing initial foundations for structural changes to water governance. However, long-term change in the structure of IRWM institutions is, at best, in its early phases. Social learning provides a basis for changing water governance and management outcomes in ways that promote representation of traditionally marginalized groups and the water challenges they face.

Complement or competition in water governance? Analysing two collaborative water management arrangements in one river basin

Water Policy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Mancheva
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Fish Migration ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Feasible Solutions

Abstract This study aims at advancing collaborative governance theory by investigating the interaction between two different collaborative arrangements within the same forested area of high ecological and social value in the Vindel River basin. Semi-structured interviews, policy documents and observations of board meetings were analysed based on analytical typologies of collaborative arrangements to answer the following questions: which factors can explain why a new collaborative arrangement was established within an area where one already existed? In what way do the two arrangements compete with or complement each other? And, to what extent do they address the effects of forestry on water? The analysis shows that a new collaborative arrangement was formed because the existing arrangement did not materialise certain stakeholders' expectations. Moreover, the two collaborative arrangements do not compete but rather complement each other. The newly established organisational/action collaborative arrangement presented those stakeholders most interested in on-the-ground action with the appropriate venue while freeing them from the organisational/policy arrangement that did not match their aims. However, both arrangements experienced power misbalances as certain stakeholders were perceived as having more influence on their agenda. Collaboration at this local-regional level was found to focus on limited problems with concrete and feasible solutions, such as fish migration, rather than on the complex problems with solutions marked by ecological uncertainty and power asymmetries, e.g. diffuse pollution from forestry.

scholarly journals The HydroSocial Cycle approach to deepen on socio-ecological systems analysis and water management

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Ricart ◽  
Andrea Castelletti
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Stakeholder Analysis ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
Water Systems ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Water Demands

<p>Balancing socio-ecological systems among competing water demands is a difficult and complex task. Traditional approaches based on limited, linear growth optimization strategies overseen by command/control have partially failed to account for the inherent unpredictability and irreducible uncertainty affecting most water systems due to climate change. Governments and managers are increasingly faced with understanding driving-factors of major change processes affecting multifunctional systems. In the last decades, the shift to address the integrated management of water resources from a technocratic ‘‘top-down’’ to a more integrated ‘‘bottom-up’’ and participatory approach was motivated by the awareness that water challenges require integrated solutions and a socially legitimate planning process. Assuming water flows as physical, social, political, and symbolic matters, it is necessary to entwining these domains in specific configurations, in which key stakeholders and decision-makers could directly interact through social-learning. The literature on integrated water resources management highlights two important factors to achieve this goal: to deepen stakeholders’ perception and to ensure their participation as a mechanism of co-production of knowledge. Stakeholder Analysis and Governance Modelling approaches are providing useful knowledge about how to integrate social-learning in water management, making the invisible, visible. The first one aims to identify and categorize stakeholders according to competing water demands, while the second one determines interactions, synergies, overlapping discourses, expectations, and influences between stakeholders, including power-relationships. The HydroSocial Cycle (HSC) analysis combines both approaches as a framework to reinforce integrated water management by focusing on stakeholder analysis and collaborative governance. This method considers that water and society are (re)making each other so the nature and competing objectives of stakeholders involved in complex water systems may affect its sustainability and management. Using data collected from a qualitative questionnaire and applying descriptive statistics and matrices, the HSC deepens on interests, expectations, and power-influence relationships between stakeholders by addressing six main issues affecting decision-making processes: relevance, representativeness, recognition, performance, knowledge, and collaboration. The aim of this contribution is to outline this method from both theory and practice perspective by highlighting the benefits of including social sciences approaches in transdisciplinary research collaborations when testing water management strategies affecting competing and dynamic water systems.</p>

The Challenge of Externally Generated Collaborative Governance: California’s Attempt at Regional Water Management

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 428-437
Author(s):  
Bruce E. Cain ◽  
Elisabeth R. Gerber ◽  
Iris Hui
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
Local Autonomy ◽  
Core Element ◽  
Disadvantaged Communities ◽  
Role Differentiation ◽  
Regional Collaboration ◽  
Local Agencies ◽  
Regional Water

Creating successful collaborative governance regimes is difficult, but can be especially hard when collaborations are externally generated by higher levels of government as opposed to self-generated by local agencies and stakeholders due to the lack of spontaneity. We analyze this problem as it applies to California’s Integrated Regional Water Governance Program. Public administration theory indicates that a core element in a successful collaboration is empowering local leaders who share the collaboration’s intended goal. However, the political concessions to local autonomy necessary to enact an externally generated collaboration can undermine its success. The tensions between maintaining local autonomy and creating a regional approach are inherently strong in a “layered collaborative governance” approach that acknowledges and accommodates local boundaries. Drawing on the concept of role differentiation, we hypothesize that the roles participants play in layered collaborative governance will frequently derive from their preexisting issue areas, geographic orientations, and power relations, but that program design incentives can influence which groups participate in the effort and how they engage. We test these hypotheses in the context of California’s Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) program. We find evidence of role differentiation on grant leadership both with respect to the initial goal of regional collaboration as well as later efforts to address the water issues of disadvantaged communities.

scholarly journals Advancing Collaborative Water Governance: Unravelling Stakeholders’ Relationships and Influences in Contentious River Basins

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 3316
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Rojas ◽  
Gabriella Bennison ◽  
Victor Gálvez ◽  
Edmundo Claro ◽  
Gabriel Castelblanco
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Stakeholder Analysis ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
Shared Vision ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Information Flows ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Water Planning

Collaborative water governance (CWG) has emerged as a promising framework to tackle water management challenges. Simple identification of participants however is not enough to unravel the intricacies of stakeholders’ interlinkages, roles and influences for robust CWG. A clear understanding of the stakeholders’ landscape is therefore required to underpin CWG. In this work, we combine stakeholder analysis (SA), social network analysis (SNA) and participatory processes (PP) under a theoretical collaborative governance framework to advance CWG in the contentious Rapel River Basin (RRB), Chile. By combining these techniques, we identified a cohort of leading (and secondary) stakeholders, their relationships and critical roles on basin-wide CWG-enabling networks (collaborative ties, information flows and financial exchanges) and their influence to achieve a shared vision for water planning. The results show members of this cohort perform critical roles (bridging, connecting and gatekeeping) across the networks and in influencing explicit elements of the shared vision. Specific CWG-enabling networks properties indicate a weak adaptive capacity of stakeholders to deal with potential water management challenges and strong prospects for sharing innovative ideas/solutions and achieving long-term water planning goals. A major CWG implementation challenge in the RRB is the lack of a leading organisation. One way forward would be formally organising stakeholders of the identified cohort to advance CWG in the RRB. By implementing the methodological framework, we facilitated social learning, fostered trust among stakeholders and mobilised efforts towards implementing CWG in practice in the contentious RRB.

Living Labs towards sustainable groundwater management: case study in Malia, Crete, Greece

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Karatzas ◽  
Anthi-Eirini Vozinaki ◽  
Ioannis Trichakis ◽  
Ioanna Anyfanti ◽  
Christina Stylianoydaki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
European Union ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Living Lab ◽  
Living Labs ◽  
Common Vision

<p>This work carries the social learning process out via Living Labs in order to construct a common vision on sustainable groundwater management. In this process, the scientific and local knowledge are integrated. This study is part of Sustain-COAST project co-funded by PRIMA programme. Stakeholders’ active engagement is realized via Living Labs, which are participatory actions that encourage the dialogue among private and public actors, create institutionalized space for discussion and vision sharing, and analyze the stakeholder-suggested mitigation options.</p><p>A stakeholder mapping took place, that is  the list of all the key groups, organizations, and people involved to water management in the study area. Further analysis was carried out to better understand stakeholders’ roles and perspectives, within the first Living Lab, organized in Malia. 55 stakeholders interacted gathered, including water users, policy makers, local and regional authorities, water management and supply associations, socio-ecological and cultural associations, NGOs, citizens, technicians, external experts, scientists.</p><p>Stakeholders got involved in social learning actions, knowing each other, expressed their motivations and expectations to participate in the first Living Lab and the project. Afterwards, a participatory session followed by implementing digital ICT tools (Mentimeter App.), which is an opinion survey technique that might improve societal awareness and stakeholders’ active engagement in water management. Afterwards, an interactive participatory map activity took place, which enabled the study site’s characterization according to key-stakeholders’ perception, knowledge, and expertise on water management issues in the area. Stakeholders collaborated in groups and filled maps of the study area with significant spatial data and information. Participants were asked to express their common vision on Malia in an entertaining puzzle activity.</p><p>The aforementioned interactive sessions enabled the extraction of the raised water issues in Malia as well as the suggestion of possible options . The need for sustainable and balanced development taking into account principles of law and equal accessibility for all was specifically noted by stakeholders. Stakeholders evaluated the Living Labs as an innovative interactive and interesting way of exchanging views among institutions and citizens, through participation and technological means. Living Labs are expected to provide significant information exchange among institutions and actors and provide realistic and socially acceptable suggestions for the local community.</p><p>Stakeholders are directly involved and motivated to maintain their active engagement in a long-lasting process via future Living Labs in Malia. Such actions increase governance capacity by addressing people’s skills in jointly decision-making and engaging stakeholders in a social learning process through participation. Actions that encourage dialogue among different actors and use innovative mediation techniques form the best options to improve and integrate water governance.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: Living Labs; Innovative governance; Water resources management; Stakeholder mapping; Social learning processes; Stakeholders’ engagement</p><p> </p><p>The PRIMA programme is an Art.185 initiative supported and funded under Horizon 2020, the European Union’s Programme for Research and Innovation.</p><p>The project is funded by the General Secretariat for Research and Technology of the Ministry of Development and Investments under the PRIMA Programme. PRIMA is an Art.185 initiative supported and co-funded under Horizon 2020, the European Union’s Programme for Research and Innovation.</p><p><img src="https://contentmanager.copernicus.org/fileStorageProxy.php?f=gepj.5d2dd87d1fff54474550161/sdaolpUECMynit/12UGE&app=m&a=0&c=108f18affabce9ab1b71bad342e5afeb&ct=x&pn=gepj.elif&d=1" alt=""></p>

Stakeholder involvement in water management: necessity or luxury?

2003 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 43-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Public Involvement ◽  
Stakeholder Involvement ◽  
Pollution Prevention ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Sustainable Water Management ◽  
The Public ◽  
Widespread Implementation ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Traditional Approaches

Stakeholder involvement in water management is widely recognized as an important component of the design and implementation of sustainable water management initiatives. Despite this, there remains a deep-rooted resistance to the widespread implementation of programs to prioritize such involvement (as witnessed by, for example, the low priority given to the public involvement element of the European Union Water Framework Directive). This paper addresses the issue of stakeholder involvement by first confronting the fact that it is not a water issue, per se. Such diverse fields as economics, agriculture, public health, pollution prevention, business and education have also identified stakeholder involvement as a difficult but necessary component of successful action in their fields. For the water sector, the issue of stakeholder involvement as either a necessity for sustainable water management, or a luxury to be used to complement traditional approaches, is discussed.

Qualitative Survey of Graduate Practice — An Intervention for Young Unemployed Jobseekers in Slovakia

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 910-918
Author(s):  
Lucia Svabova ◽  
◽  
Vladimir Borik ◽  
Marek Durica ◽  
Johanna Grudin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Qualitative Evaluation ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
The European Union ◽  
State Budget ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Potential Employer ◽  
Qualitative Survey ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Active Labour

Active labour market policy interventions are vide used tool of a government against unemployment. One of the most frequently used intervention for young jobseekers in Slovakia is a Contribution for Graduate practice. This measure is intended for young unemployed jobseekers as a tool of gaining first contact with the open labour market and with potential employer and gaining first work experiences. In this paper we present a qualitative survey of Graduate practice that was made as an ex-post evaluation of this intervention by its participants in Slovakia. This evaluation of the intervention was carried out at the request of the European Commission not only in Slovakia but also in several countries of the European Union. The qualitative evaluation, as a part of this rigorous intervention evaluation, provides feedback from the real intervention participants and brings some suggestions to improve the parameters and conditions of Graduate practice intervention and its realization. These improvements are useful not only for participants themselves, for companies in which young graduates are employed but also for the state budget in the form of returned or saved invested funds because of better functioning of the intervention. Based on the results of this feedback from its real participants, some parameters, conditions and details of the Graduate practice intervention have been changed and added in Slovakia.

Water Governance and Management in Indus Basin - Challenges & Threats

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marium Sara Minhas Bandeali
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Water Policy ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Sustainable Use ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
The State ◽  
Indus Basin

Water governance and management are important challenges for the River Indus Basin in Pakistan. Water governance refers to social, political and economic factors that influence water management. The water scarcity and water security are a major concern for the state to control its water resources. The study aims to give Sindh water policy by exploring the challenges to Indus Basin in managing water resources and to identify opportunities Indus Basin can look to improve water management. Interviews were conducted from water experts and analysts having 5 years’ experience or more in the water sector of Pakistan through a semi-structured self-developed questionnaire using purposive sampling technique and transcripts were analyzed using thematic content analysis. The findings show that increasing population, climatic change and rising demand of water are major challenges Indus is facing and Indus with time is getting water-scarce therefore need strong institutions, civil society and legislatures to ensure equitable distribution of water and maintain the ecosystem. The study emphasizes that water governance and management are necessary for sustainable use of water. Pakistan, the water stress country needs to address ‘governance’ at a wider scale to solve problems in the Indus Basin for the livelihood of people. The research will benefit the state, water experts, institutions as well as civil society to promote efficient use of water in Indus Basin.

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